Juliet's Nurse

An enthralling new telling of
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet —
told from the perspective of Juliet's nurse.

In death-ravaged Verona, Angelica, a mother mourning her day-old infant, enters the household of the powerful Cappelletti family to become the wet-nurse to their newborn daughter Juliet. Over the next fourteen years, Angelica becomes caught up in the Cappelletti's darkest secrets. But when those secrets erupt across five momentous days of love and loss, Angelica must confront her own deepest grief to find the strength to survive. By turns comic, sensual, and tragic, JULIET'S NURSE gives voice to one of literature's most memorable characters, a woman who was both insider and outsider among Verona's wealthy ruling class. Laying bare the romance and intrigue of interwoven loyalties, rivalries, and jealousies only hinted at in Shakespeare's play, acclaimed novelist and historian Lois Leveen reveals the deepest passion in Verona — the love between a grieving woman and her precious milk-daughter. Perfectly timed for 2014, the worldwide 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, Leveen's novel draws readers into the passion and danger of daily life in fourteenth-century Italy. JULIET'S NURSE offers a vivid portrait of heartbreak and hope, suffering and survival.